1970 O-Pee-Chee/OPC #423 Jerry May (Pirates) Baseball card

Price = $ 3.95 NM/MT to ExMt

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Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting.
Visit our web site for more info on vintage and current
baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and
non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q8: What are some additional useful to know baseball card collecting terms ?

(part 4)Team Set - a group of cards featuring all the issues of the players of a
particular team from the same release.

Test Issue - a preliminary offering issued as a test to see if a product
would be accepted by collectors.

Tobacco Card - typically from the early 1900s, these were cards issued with
tobacco products. The most famous of which is the "T-206" Honus Wagner card.

Traded/Update Set - a set issued after the original issue primarily featuring rookies
or players who were traded since the original issue came out.

Trimmed Card - a card reduced in size from when it was issued, usually to hide
an imperfection such as damaged edges or corners. Trimmed cards usually have very
little value but in some cases such as the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, even trimmed
cards can go for thousands of dollars. The most famous 'trimmed' card to date is the
T206 Honus Wagner purchased by Wayne Gretzky. The card was actually too large and
was trimmed down to it's proper size.

Unauthorized Issue - a card release which is not licensed by a league, a player’s
association, or by a player.

Variation - a card that was printed by the manufacturer in two or more different
ways.

Wax - a universal collecting term for factory-sealed packs or boxes. The term "wax"
most often refers to sealed material that was originally released in the
early 1990’s or back -- a time when packs were wrapped and sealed in wax
paper wrappers. It can casually reference modern era packs or boxes that no longer use actual wax paper.

The issue below is featured elsewhere on this website:

1959 Fleer Ted Williams

Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game !
The 'Splendid Splinter' played from 1939-1942 and 1946-1960 all with
the Boston Red Sox. He missed 1943 thru 1945 due to military duty when he
was a pilot during the wars. For his career he hit .344 with 521 home runs.
Ted Williams was one of the biggest stars baseball has ever seen,
and his baseball cards remain very popular and valuable.

Ted's rookie card was in 1950 Bowman and he was exclusive with Bowman from
1950 thru 1954. In 1954 he also allowed Topps to make his cards which
they did from 1954 thru 1958.

In 1959 Fleer signed Ted Williams away from Topps and assumed the star
Ted Williams would be retiring, put out an entire 80-card set of cards
highlighting Ted Williams and illustrating his life both in and out of baseball.
Williams decided late in the fall to resign for another year perhaps
damaging the sets impact. Today these cards remain extremely popular
with most of the cards in teh set still quite affordable.

There is one very rare card in this set, #68 picturing Ted with Bucky Harris.
UNFORTUNATELY Topps had Bucky Harris under exclusive contract and
Fleer had to quickly halt production of this card making it a significant
SHORT PRINT. Only a few made it out to the public. This card is quite rare,
hardly ever seen and a plain old simple checklist making it the perfect
candidate for counterfeiting.
NOTE: This card has been counterfeited in significant quantities
so you should be very, very careful when looking to acquire this card.

Other interesting cards are those that picture Ted with Babe Ruth,
Jimmie Foxx, Sam Snead and Jim Thorpe. In addition, cards of Ted fishing
or with his airplane are also very popular.

1961 Topps Baseball Cards AUTOGRAPHED Set info/information

By now you all heard of the rash of counterfeit autographs on the market. The following autographs all come with auction house LOA's (Letters of Authenticity) from the top
authenticators in the hobby - PSA/DNA or James Spence !!!

1961 Topps was the first of the very popular and continuing Topps Rookie All-Star Trophies subsets.
Cards from the last series (#523-#589) are scarce "High Numbers" making the set fairly expensive to complete.

MLB Baseball expansion led to one of the least attractive aspects of the 1961 Topps baseball card set.
The American League made several changes. The Los Angeles Angels were added, the Washington Senators became
the Minnesota Twins and a new franchise was granted to the Washington Senators who also debuted in 1961.
Possibly because of these team changes, many players had their portrait photos taken without their baseball caps.
Not only did most of the players look awful without their caps, they looked more like your old,
not so handsome uncle then athletes!

Card backs were black print on an army green background on a dark card stock making them somewhat difficult to read.
TOP ROOKIES: #35 Ron Santo, #141 Billy Williams, #417 Juan Marichal, Willie Davis, Zoilo Versalles & Jim Maloney;
are popular players but still reasonably priced.

More interesting tid-bits from the 1961 Topps set:

Card #1 features All-American basketball player Dick Groat
Card #2 features Roger Maris, right prior to his record breaking 61 Home Run season
........Maris once ran back four kickoffs for touchdowns in a single game!
Mickey Mantle had 6 cards making the 1961 Topps set that much more costly.
#.44 American League Home Run Leaders
#300 Mickey Mantle's regular card
#307 Mickey Mantle 'Slams 2 Home Runs' World Series
#406 Mickey Mantle "Blasts 565 ft. HR"
#475 Mickey Mantle MVP card
#578 Mickey Mantle's scarce high # All-Star card
Other than the checklists, the set has no other variations.

Collectors of 1961 Topps cards may also want to take a look at 3 other baseball issues Topps
released that year: a Topps Dice Game, Topps Magic Rub-Offs and a series of Topps Stamps.

Although some dealers and collectors consider this set boring, with it's clean design, many special subsets
and multiple cards of some of the games top stars including 6 Mantle's I rate it much higher.
And, as I end most of my write-ups on vintage Topps sets, grab a glance at Don Mossi and those famous ears !